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My near death experience and detox. [WARNING: Wall of Text]
Well, a lot of you CAers know most of my back story, but some of the noobs might not, so I'll start at the beginning. I grew up dirt poor on a subsistence farm in the middle of rural south Texas. Due to my grandfather and his german and scottish background, I got my first little beer glass at 7 years old. Every time he would pop open a Buckhorn, Lone Star or Pearl, I was right there with my little glass and he'd give me just a little bit. That was my first taste of booze. That ended as I got older and I went boozeless until I was about 16. When I was 15-16 I raced motocross. When I was 16, I ended my last race with two motorcycles on my right leg. With nothing else to do, me and my small group of misfit friends start drinking...almost exclusively on weekends. Fast-forward to age 23: After playing in a string of go-nowhere bands, I end up hooking up with a couple guys and starting a band that became *very* niche popular *very* fast. My drinking gradually increased over the 11 years from weekends to every other night and weekends to pretty much every night when I took on extra work as a strip club DJ and bouncer. Also during those 11 years, I was webmaster of a small but popular software company, the webmaster for the city I lived in, major online content producer for the local newspaper and creative director for an advertising firm. I'd run out of job options and was drinking pretty much every night. Also, during this time, I racked up 3 DWIs and a host of other alcohol related jail stays. My friend up here in DC needed a roommate and help with founding a startup non-profit organization (I also had a long term freelance project I was working on, so I had income when I moved here), I needed a fresh start, so I moved. One way plane ticket, 4 bags of laundry and a laptop. For the first year I was here, I cut back my drinking a lot. One year after I move here, I luck into a wonderful, high-profile job that made me many friends and colleagues (some of which you can see on the major news networks as experts and talking heads), but was extremely stressful, even though I *loved* the work. Being stressed constantly, I got back to drinking every day. The minute I got off work, I'd head to happy hour and start drinking. This drinking eventually got worse and worse. Fast forward 5 years and I basically drink myself out of the job (mid March of this year). With nothing left to do (no job, no band, no hobbies, no real motivation), I proceed to start drinking all day every day. I dry myself out a few times, but relapsed rather quickly after each attempt. About 2 months ago, I self-detox and my dry lasts about a week. I put myself on the keto diet in order to lose some weight and try to get some motivation back into my life. The problem is, I'm drinking like a fish at the time. What I didn't remember is that alcohol stores itself in fat cells. The keto diet forces your body to burn its own fat for energy instead of carbs. In order to stabilize the weight loss, you also eat lots of fat. So, while sucking down booze like it's going out of style, I'm storing tons of alcohol into the the fat I'm taking in, along with the alcohol that's already stored in the fat already in my body. When my body burns the fat, it releases a FLOOD of alcohol into my system along with what I'm already drinking...which, by this time, is A LOT. I was up to roughly a half handle of whiskey a day if not more. **(BIG NOTE: I didn't realize about the whole diet making things exponentially worse until just Monday afternoon.)** For the last 3 weeks or so, my shakes had gotten so bad due to alcohol withdrawal (because I was absolutely flooding my system with alcohol) that when I got to the bar at happy hour, I had to use both hands to get the first few whiskey shots to my mouth. I was at the point of having to get my BAC up to about .15 to .20 *just to get rid of the shakes* and feel semi-normal. I was paranoid all the time that everyone could tell how bad off I was and I was filled with so much shame I cried at night. In the last 2 weeks, my withdrawals were getting so severe that they would wake me up in the middle of the night, just a couple hours after I had stopped drinking, so about a week and a half ago, I start taking Unisom (an over the counter benzo sleep aid) just to sleep through those shakes and get more than an hour or two of sleep. I went through a 32 count bottle of 50mg Unisoms in roughly a week. I was having to take up to the maximum daily dosage (300mg or 6 pills) just to get a few extra hours sleep. I empty the bottle Tuesday of last week. It's also at this time I realize I am WAY past trying to taper so that I can detox myself again. Note that on top of all this, I've had bouts of high blood pressure since I was around 24 and I was also diagnosed with clinical depression at the same time. I wasn't on meds for either condition. Also note that about 4 years ago, my father drank himself to death at the age of roughly 75. My sister had to go to this ratty little cabin apartment in the middle of nowhere and identify his body. She told me that he was so bloated it looked like he had been pregnant with triplets. Also, his entire apartment was covered in empty Jack Daniels bottles. *Hundreds* of them. Back to last Wednesday night and I'm looking at my (then) current condition and reliving what my mother and sister went through with my father's death and all the shame and guilt I was feeling for ending up just like him (I couldn't stand the guy. He was the drunk I never wanted to be but eventually turned into.) and I lost it. I had a depressive breakdown, but I also had an epiphany: I *can't* keep living like this. If I do I *will* die, probably soon...and I *refuse* to make my mother and sister go through that again. I love them too much and no mother should have to outlive her own son. So, Thursday, under an alt account, I put out a desperate plea for help on the WashDC subreddit for detox information. I get a flood of info and decide to check into a place very near my apartment. I've never been to a full-blown inpatient detox, so I know jack shit about them. The one I end up checking into is a social detox, which means cold turkey and they just watch you. I didn't know this. Friday, I proceed to drink my apt dry so that I don't have any booze to come back to after detox and clean up as best I can. I then call and set up for intake on Saturday. I go in Saturday morning with a horrible set of shakes. The incept people know something's up. They take my vitals all day. By the time the afternoon rolls around my blood pressure is up to 186/111. I was probably 2 hours or less away from a seizure/stroke/heart attack. In other words: **fucking dead**. The people proceed to take me to the ER at a local hospital with a world class detox unit and drop me off. The ER gets me fixed up so that I don't die on the spot. The ER doc also decides that I need controlled, inpatient detox (with the drugs and monitoring and everything) which is what I was looking for in the first place. I spend Saturday night through Tuesday morning under heavy monitoring, controlled detox. I now have a prescription for high blood pressure meds and a new lease on life. I'm sober and I feel better than I have in over a decade. I'm happy. I feel healthy. This is the best thing I think I've ever done for myself in my life. Also, *it scared me boozeless*. I see beer commercials and get an "ewwww" reaction. But, for me, that's good. This is something I've needed to do for a long time and I'm infinitely glad I did. I guess the reason I'm venting this is as a cautionary tale. If you're going to booze, watch yourself. Watch your health. Remember that unless you're absolutely alone in this world, ending up like me at my lowest point *does* affect other people. Most likely, people that love you. With that... I guess AMA. I'll answer any question you have. more